[Nagash 03] - Nagash Immortal

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  The asp’s head darted forwards, almost too fast for Neferata’s eye to follow. It closed the distance between her and the prince faster than the blink of an eye, mouth open and fangs distended.

  Alcadizzar’s hand snapped shut—and suddenly the asp spasmed, writhing impotently in his iron grip. As Neferata watched, the prince bent his head and kissed the serpent gently atop its head, and then carefully unwound the rest of its length from her arm.

  “Asaph be praised,” she said softly, feeling a flush of heat across her face and down her slender neck. Quickly she mastered herself as Alcadizzar placed the asp back in its box. “Bear witness, sisters!” she called to the other priestesses. “The goddess has shown her favour! Behold Alcadizzar, the temple’s first high priest!”

  With cries of joy, the high priestesses rose up and gathered around the prince. They touched him lightly and whispered their congratulations as a new robe of purest samite was draped about his broad shoulders. He nodded his head and smiled a little sheepishly at the masked women, clearly uncomfortable being at the centre of such intimate female attention.

  Neferata dismissed the priestesses with an unspoken command; they scattered like a flock of birds, vanishing quietly into the shadows. She stepped forwards and held out her hand to Alcadizzar.

  “You are one of us now,” she said. “It is time you were welcomed into the inner sanctum.”

  The prince, his face flushed with triumph, gave Neferata a dazzling smile and placed his hand in hers. His eyes widened faintly in surprise.

  “Your skin,” he said. “It’s so cold. Are you well, holy one?”

  “I have never been better. Come.”

  Pulling gently on his hand, Neferata led him from the dais and into the shadows behind the statue of the goddess. Her hand found the small wooden door set into the wall and pushed it open. Orange lamplight spilled through the doorway from the corridor beyond.

  They walked in silence for a time, down the narrow, dusty passageways and through the richly appointed chambers of the inner sanctum. Alcadizzar studied each room with interest, drinking in every detail of his surroundings.

  “This part of the temple is much older than the rest,” he observed, brushing his fingertips along the curved flank of a marble pillar.

  Neferata nodded approvingly. “So it is. We are walking in what was once the Women’s Palace. Now these chambers are set aside for the comfort and edification of the temple’s higher orders.”

  “Hmpf,” the prince replied with a frown. “A far cry from the bare walls and the wooden cot of an initiate’s cell.”

  “An initiate’s purpose is to learn, not luxuriate,” Neferata replied. “Now that you’re enlightened, you may reap the rewards of your hard work and dedication.”

  They passed through a long, columned gallery and found themselves at the edge of the former palace’s old garden. Once it had been a carefully manicured refuge, with profusions of gorgeous, exotic plants, rambling gravel pathways and serene reflecting pools. Now, after centuries of benign neglect, it was a dense wilderness of dark fronds, glossy native vines and stands of Eastern bamboo. Frogs chirped to one another in the darkness, while late-summer cicadas droned from the depths of the bamboo groves.

  New pathways had been worn through the undergrowth over the decades, lit by the faint glow of the moon. Neferata led the prince down one such track, navigating more by memory than eyesight. After several minutes, they emerged at the centre of the garden.

  Here, the area had been kept mostly clear and remained much as it had been centuries before. A dense carpet of soft, springy grass surrounded a broad, deep pool, ringed by old, well-tended ornamental trees. Neru was bright and full overhead, transforming the surface of the pond to quicksilver.

  Neferata let go of Alcadizzar’s hand and walked towards the still water. The tips of the thick grasses brushed her feet through the gaps in her sandals. “This has always been one of my favourite places,” she said softly. So many memories, she thought, their edges blurring now with the passage of time. Neferata could not say for sure whether that was a blessing or a curse. “The temple at Khemri will need a place like this as well. Remember that, when you lay its foundations.”

  “That’s a long way away,” the prince said with a sigh. “It’s possible that the temple won’t even be completed in my lifetime.”

  Neferata laughed at the notion. “Don’t be foolish. Of course it will!” She turned back to him. “Look at how far you’ve come since joining the temple. In just a few more years, you’ll be ready for the final initiation, and then the west will be yours.”

  Alcadizzar walked towards the moonlit pool, his face pensive. “But for how long?” he asked. “I’m fifty-five years old. There is so much to do. I hardly know where to begin.”

  Neferata joined him at the edge of the pool. “Look at you,” she said, pointing to his reflection. “Still as young and handsome as ever. That’s the power of the divine, Alcadizzar. In ancient times, our people lived a much longer span of years. A man wasn’t considered to be in his prime until he was eighty. You’ll enjoy a life at least as long,” she said to him, “as a hierophant of the temple, perhaps even longer.”

  The prince looked at her wonderingly. “Is such a thing possible?”

  Neferata smiled behind her mask. “That depends upon you, my prince. Tell me, if you could rule Khemri for a hundred years, what would you do?”

  Alcadizzar smiled. “Rebuild the city, for a start. There are still entire districts inhabited by nothing more than rats.” He folded his arms. “After that, focus on the docks, and get the river trade with Zandri going again. If Lahmia would permit it, I’d build a trading post along the river, where it touches the Golden Plain to the north-west of here. That would bring goods to the west far quicker than the overland route through the mountains.”

  “And avoid all those troublesome tolls passing the goods through Quatar,” Neferata noted wryly.

  “There is that,” the prince answered slyly. “After that… I don’t know. There are so many things I’d like to do. Build a collegium, like the one at Lybaras, and a great library that would serve scholars and citizens alike.” His smile widened and his voice grew more animated as he continued. “I’d rebuild the army, of course, and fund expeditions to explore the lands beyond Nehekhara. And of course there’s the matter of stemming the growth of the Great Desert…” He spread his hands and gave a shrug. “You see? I don’t even think a century would be enough.”

  Neferata slipped her arm around the prince’s broad shoulders. “Two centuries, then,” she whispered. “Or five. There are… higher mysteries… that you have not yet plumbed, Alcadizzar. There is so much more I can teach you, if you are willing. Perhaps… perhaps you need not ever die at all.” She leaned close to him, intoxicated by his warmth. “Think of it. You would be greater than Settra himself!”

  “Or as terrible as Nagash.”

  The woman’s voice was melodious and yet forbidding, as cold and pure as the silvery tones of a bell. Alcadizzar and Neferata jolted apart like a pair of guilty young lovers, searching amid the surrounding trees for the source of the sound.

  A lithe figure glided from the shadows on the far side of the glimmering pond. She was dressed in fine silken robes from the lands of the Far East and moved with an artful, almost mesmerising grace as she stepped into the moonlight. Her porcelain features were delicate and exotic, with high, rounded cheekbones and large, oval-shaped eyes. Jade pins glowed from her raven-black hair, bound tightly atop her head to reveal the slender curve of her throat. After spending so many years among the masked priestesses of the temple, the woman’s uncovered face both disturbed and fascinated Alcadizzar.

  “Death is what separates mankind from the gods, young prince,” the woman said. “And for good reason. Immortality brings us nothing but misery.”

  Neferata growled deep in her throat, like an angry lioness. “Naaima!” she spat. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Suddenly, the ser
ene atmosphere of the clearing was charged with tension. Alcadizzar stiffened, surprised by the vehemence in Neferata’s voice, but Naaima’s expression was implacable.

  “There is news from Rasetra,” she said, glaring an accusation at Neferata. “The old king, Aten-heru, is dead. He has gone into the realms of the dead, never having seen the face of his eldest son.”

  Alcadizzar said nothing. A frown creased his brow, as though the young man was uncertain what he should feel. After a moment, he sighed. “Who will rule in Aten-heru’s place?” he asked.

  “Your younger brother, Asar,” Naaima told him. “He sends you his greetings and his love, and begs you to quit Lahmia and come home for your father’s interment.”

  The prince’s frown deepened into a scowl. “Home?” he said. “No. I cannot. I am pledged to the temple—”

  “Cannot?” Naaima said. “You are to be the king of Khemri! There is nothing you cannot do! Leave this place, Alcadizzar. Now. Before it’s too late—”

  “Silence!” Neferata snarled, and this time Naaima flinched at the power in her voice. Eyes glittering like a serpent’s, Neferata turned to Alcadizzar. “Leave us,” she said curtly. “Return to the inner sanctum and offer up prayers to the goddess for your father’s safe passage into the underworld. It is the proper thing for a son to do.”

  Alcadizzar hesitated for a moment, his gaze shifting from Neferata to Naaima as he tried to read the invisible currents of anger between them. When no further explanation was forthcoming he gave a reluctant nod. “Yes, holy one,” he said at last.

  The prince withdrew quietly from the clearing, casting long glances over his shoulder at the rigid, angry figures of the two women.

  Silence descended on the clearing. Neferata said nothing for a long while, until Alcadizzar’s stealthy footfalls had faded from the garden entirely. Naaima waited for what was to come, her expression calm but her dark eyes glinting defiantly.

  “I’m trying to recall the last time I saw you,” Neferata said at last. “How long has it been? Forty-five years? Fifty? You’ve avoided me for half a century, and now here you are.” She began walking slowly towards Naaima, as if the former courtesan were a wild animal that was easily spooked. “After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”

  “Yes,” Naaima shot back. “How else? Long ago, you saved my life. Can’t you see that I’m trying to do the same?”

  “You know how important he is!” Neferata snarled. “Alcadizzar represents the future! Together we’ll lead Nehekhara into a golden age—an eternal age of peace and prosperity!”

  “No. You won’t.” Naaima shook her head sadly. “Alcadizzar will never be your consort, Neferata, no matter what you think. Once he realises what you truly are, he will become your sworn enemy.” Tears glimmered at the corners of her eyes. “He will have no choice. Can’t you see that? All he knows is duty and sacrifice. That’s the way you made him.” Naaima wiped at her cheeks. “Then you will have to kill Alcadizzar, or let him go. Either way, Lahmia will burn.”

  Neferata reached up and tore off her golden mask. Her fangs glinted coldly in the moonlight. “What do you know of Alcadizzar, you Eastern slut?” she said. “It was my blood that saved him as a babe, when his own mother could not, and it’s my blood that courses through his body even now! His first duty is to me, and no other!”

  More tears stained the former courtesan’s face. This time she did not bother to wipe them away. “I’m sorry,” Naaima said. “I know it must be hard for you, after everything you’ve lost. But Alcadizzar will not make you a queen again. He cannot. Nor will he ever love you.”

  “Get out of my sight,” Neferata said. Her voice had grown as hard and cold as stone. “Now. Or so help me, I’ll rip out your traitorous little heart.”

  Naaima closed her eyes in resignation. “As you wish,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster. She withdrew slowly, stepping back into the all-concealing shadows. Her voice rose like a ghost from the darkness.

  “Always, I have loved you,” she said. “And I will do so until the end. Remember that, when all the others have betrayed you.”

  “I said go!” Neferata cried. She rushed forwards, claws raised. Night birds leapt from the branches of the trees, their forlorn cries echoing from the distant garden walls.

  ——

  Unwelcome Conclusions

  Nagashizzar, in the 99th year of Ualatp the Patient

  (-1290 Imperial Reckoning)

  “Hsst!” The scout-assassin raised a clawed paw and lashed his tail sharply. One ear was pressed against the rough, weeping stone of the tunnel, and his eyes were shut in concentration as he listened to the faint sounds vibrating through the rock.

  A chorus of shrill, serpentine hisses echoed up and down the narrow passage, and the dust-covered sappers at the far end froze in place. Bits of broken stone spilled from their clenched fingers, the noise magnified a thousandfold in the tense air. Down the length of the tunnel, the rest of the skaven silently readied their weapons. They were close now; the sappers had been digging underneath the foundations of the tower for more than an hour and the last of the supports were nearly exposed. This was the point where things most often went wrong.

  The scout-assassin held himself absolutely still as he waited for the sound to repeat itself. It might have been nothing more than wagon wheels rumbling across a paved roadway, just a few dozen feet above them—or it might have been a sudden fall of stone from a counter-sapping tunnel heading their way. A breach could fill the tunnel with roiling clouds of poison gas and spear-wielding skeletons—or worse, packs of howling, frenzied flesh-eaters. The campaign against the creatures’ foetid nests had driven the flesh-eaters to new depths of savagery against the invaders—especially the distinctive, black-robed scouts. Better a swift death than to be captured by the monsters and dragged back to their hilltop lairs.

  Long moments passed. Pink noses twitched nervously in the gloom. Clouds of fine, grey dust drifted through the air, stirred by the faint exhalations of the sappers and their guardians. One of the skaven stirred, ever so slightly, drawing savage looks from his companions.

  By degrees, the scout-assassin relaxed. His paw lowered and the skaven let out a collective hiss of relief. Moments later, the soft sound of claws on stone resumed at the far end of the passageway.

  Eekrit straightened as the sappers continued their work. “That’s the fifth one in the last ten minutes,” he muttered. The warlord grimaced as he tried to work a cramp from between his scarred shoulderblades.

  Lord Eshreegar coughed faintly—the closest sound to laughter he could manage. “Better than the alternative,” the Master of Treacheries answered. Five years after the inferno in mine shaft seven, his voice was still little better than a whispering rasp. “The last time we had a breach, the flesh-eaters nearly made off with you.”

  The warlord snorted in derision. “They never laid a hand on me. Not that you noticed, of course.” Eekrit’s sword paw clenched at the memory of the vicious, close-quarters fight. It had been a nearer thing than he cared to admit. He attempted a dismissive shrug, wincing as the scar tissue across his shoulders drew tight. “I’m more like to die of a heart rupture from all these false alarms.” He bared his long teeth at the sharp-eared sentry, several dozen paces down the tunnel. “I’m starting to think Velsquee’s put him up to it.”

  Eshreegar gave the warlord a sidelong glance. He had to turn his head to do it; the left side of his face was a patchwork of bald, pinkish scar tissue, and a golden skull gleamed in the ravaged pit where his eye used to be. “We’ve been pulling down the burning man’s towers for the last eight months,” the Master of Treacheries replied. “We’re outnumbered a thousand to one, and his warriors are getting better at catching us with every passing night. You think the Grey Lord needs to go to all the trouble of bribing an assassin to kill you?”

  Eekrit glowered at Eshreegar. “He might,” the warlord muttered darkly. “It’s been five years since we br
ought down mine shaft seven, and we’re still alive. He could be getting impatient.”

  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Lord Velsquee certainly wanted Eekrit dead. By all reports, the Grey Lord had been near apoplectic when he’d learned of the mine shaft’s collapse and the attendant destruction that had followed. The levels around shaft number seven had grown so honeycombed with side-passages and murder holes that the collapse touched off a wave of secondary cave-ins for more than a week afterwards. The aftershocks reverberated as far down as the under-fortress itself, and only the desperate efforts of the army’s engineers prevented the loss of mine shaft eight as well. How the raiding party managed to escape the destruction and reach the safety of the lower levels, only the Horned God himself knew.

  Had Eshreegar and a couple of his scouts not pulled Eekrit from the collapsing mine shaft, he would not have survived at all. As it was, both he and the Master of Treacheries nearly succumbed to their burns during the long weeks that followed. Eekrit’s clan spent large sums on his behalf, summoning chirurgeons from as far away as the Great City to tend his injuries. Eshreegar’s wounds were even more severe; the scout-assassins closed ranks around their leader and kept him in seclusion for more than a month until they were certain that he would survive. All the while, Velsquee seethed, wanting nothing more than to drag them before a summary trial and lay the entire blame for the disaster at their feet.

  The Grey Lord was eager to divert attention onto Eekrit and the destruction of mine shaft seven and away from the disaster of his would-be ambush of the kreekar-gan. The enemy’s poison cloud had decimated the army’s best troops, including Velsquee’s own storm-walkers, and sent the rest in a panicked retreat that the Grey Lord himself had been hard-pressed to stop. Mine shaft eight had fallen to the burning man’s warriors and hasty defences around mine shaft nine, comprised of shattered warrior packs and terrified slave mobs, likely wouldn’t have held for long, even with Velsquee and Qweeqwol personally in command. Though stories of Velsquee’s heroic stand were now an established part of the lore surrounding the desperate fight, the truth was that the army had been pushed to the brink of defeat, and the lines had stabilised only after the collapse of the mine shaft had thrown the enemy advance into disarray.